[DEVTHREAD]Pathfinder - Space Camping & Geoscience

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Interesting. Hope you can get something that works for you. Also, you can use the stock Drill-O-Matic to extract a variety of different resources, just like the Gold Digger. The idea was that the Gold Digger was intended for scientific research but jurry-rigged to dig up resources. Once you unlock the Drill-O-Matic you can hook one up to your base and go to town. Once I get back to the wiki documentation, I'll make that apparent.

Thanks for the info on ThermalPower, I'm defining a custom resource called GeoEnergy.

How do you plan to extract the GeoEnergy? Conventional Drill? Or you think you can rig something up that doesn't require taking up a drill?

[Angelo Kerman]

How do you plan to extract the GeoEnergy? Conventional Drill? Or you think you can rig something up that doesn't require taking up a drill?

Pathfinder lets you modify the GoldDigger as well as the stock Drill-O-Matic to extract any available resource in the biome, so those two will automatically be able to extract GeoEnergy. I'm looking into creating a custom ModuleResourceHarvester- mostly so that Pathfinder will leave it alone- that is included with the Hot Springs and is more efficient than the Gold Digger when extracting resources, but only extracts GeoEnergy. If I can't do that then the GoldDigger and stock Drill-O-Matic- well, anything that has a ModuleResourceHarvester- will be modifiable to extract GeoEnergy.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Pathfinder lets you modify the GoldDigger as well as the stock Drill-O-Matic to extract any available resource in the biome, so those two will automatically be able to extract GeoEnergy. I'm looking into creating a custom ModuleResourceHarvester- mostly so that Pathfinder will leave it alone- that is included with the Hot Springs and is more efficient than the Gold Digger when extracting resources, but only extracts GeoEnergy. If I can't do that then the GoldDigger and stock Drill-O-Matic- well, anything that has a ModuleResourceHarvester- will be modifiable to extract GeoEnergy.

Yeah I kind of figured about that.

Do you have any insight on making the Template I posted operate as a drill? Like I mentioned, so far all I got it to do was show ore and turn the drill on, but it neither extracted ore, nor did it so much as give me a modify-drill tweakable button when a kerbal was near it. (And I have the settings set to freebie conditions.)

[Angelo Kerman]

Yeah I kind of figured about that.

Do you have any insight on making the Template I posted operate as a drill? Like I mentioned, so far all I got it to do was show ore and turn the drill on, but it neither extracted ore, nor did it so much as give me a modify-drill tweakable button when a kerbal was near it. (And I have the settings set to freebie conditions.)

Not sure, actually. I'm learning about drills right now and figuring out how they work. I'm adding an ImpactTransform to the Hacienda so that it will be able to run the drill, but so far I'm not having luck. Once I get that sorted out I can look more at the config you've set up.

[Angelo Kerman]

Aha!

And I don't even have to fiddle with a custom drill! Since ModuleManager looks for ModuleResourceHarvester that exists on the part, and ModuleResourceHarvester is loaded dynamically, I don't have to worry about giving the Geothermal Tap a higher efficiency than the Gold Digger or stock Drill-O-Matic!

Ok, now to your custom config file:

You don't need the asteroid drill. That only works for asteroids, and Pathfinder isn't set up to handle asteroids yet. You don't need the efficiency monitor that you've already commented out. To make your drill able to change what it extracts, add the following:

MODULE

{

name = WBIDrillSwitcher

requiredSkill = Engineer

requiredResource = RocketParts

reconfigureCost = 20

}

If you want to create a custom graphic for your mining module, check the wiki on the Anatomy of a template. It has a Photoshop file that you can download containing the template I use for making new decals.

Side Note: Minmus does NOT have GeoEnergy in the upcoming update. I simply have it available to me for testing purposes.

- - - Updated - - -

Here are a couple of icons for you, just in case:

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The Hacienda will have the ImpactTransform it needs for drills in the next release. Actually, so will the Doc and the Ponderosas.

Edited October 10, 2015 by Angel-125

[StahnAileron]

My thoughts on a GeoPlant: Water is a require resource along with GeoEnergy. However, GeoEnergy is treated like IntakeAir: you can't store it directly and therefore need a constant supply (e.g. a drill plunged into the ground). From there you can either directly convert it to Energy or, more "realistically", you create SuperHeatedWater, which can be stored and/or processed to produce EC and Water. Both options could/would have water losses during the (initial) conversion. This would account for steam leakage or something. I just think you shouldn't be able to directly store significant amounts of GeoEnergy.

Efficiency/rate of EC production is based on Water Supply amount, "Absorption Area" of the "Geothermal Pipe", and GeoEnergy "concentration", up to the cap of the generator.

[CajunInABox]

got another little bug fix for you. In the BrewWorks config, the crack xenon module outputs "Xenon" as the resource, but it should be "XenonGas".

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

got another little bug fix for you. In the BrewWorks config, the crack xenon module outputs "Xenon" as the resource, but it should be "XenonGas".

No, that's right. You should be seeing lots of Terraformer killbots appearing from the BrewWorks and murderizing your Kerbals.

[/Joke]

[Floker]

Hi Angel,

Is there a way to install only the Ponderosa? My problem here is that it doesn't inflate and I have no idea which files are needed exactly (additionally to those in /assets of course).

Please don't be offended :-) It's just the old RAM problem. I would still love to go for some camping trips with the Ponderosa though but the game keeps crashing with the whole mod installed.

Anyway great mod! Keep up the good work!

[Angelo Kerman]

My thoughts on a GeoPlant: Water is a require resource along with GeoEnergy. However, GeoEnergy is treated like IntakeAir: you can't store it directly and therefore need a constant supply (e.g. a drill plunged into the ground). From there you can either directly convert it to Energy or, more "realistically", you create SuperHeatedWater, which can be stored and/or processed to produce EC and Water. Both options could/would have water losses during the (initial) conversion. This would account for steam leakage or something. I just think you shouldn't be able to directly store significant amounts of GeoEnergy.

Efficiency/rate of EC production is based on Water Supply amount, "Absorption Area" of the "Geothermal Pipe", and GeoEnergy "concentration", up to the cap of the generator.

I'll have to look into how to do that. ModuleIntakeResource is for atmospheric and oceanic resources as far as I can tell. I think I'd have to set up the converter to chew through GeoEnergy rapidly, and have the drill extract the resource quickly as well- which can be problematic in areas with a small percentage of GeoEnergy. I think what I've got in testing is a step in the right direction but it will need refinement.

got another little bug fix for you. In the BrewWorks config, the crack xenon module outputs "Xenon" as the resource, but it should be "XenonGas".

I'll send in the Autobots. Thanks for the bug report.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

From my own test with the basic water-steam loop, so long as the plant doesn't have an autoshutdown from low resources, any amount of the input resource lower than the needed value-per-tick results in an output that is a direct percentage.

You don't need anything special, just:

1: No storage for the resource beyond what it uses per tick.

2: A consumption very close to matching the maximum draw you can get.

[EdusacconBR]

Buckboard has collider issues

when i attach it on the vab, i cant grab it

[Angelo Kerman]

From my own test with the basic water-steam loop, so long as the plant doesn't have an autoshutdown from low resources, any amount of the input resource lower than the needed value-per-tick results in an output that is a direct percentage.

You don't need anything special, just:

1: No storage for the resource beyond what it uses per tick.

2: A consumption very close to matching the maximum draw you can get.

Hm. Well, how much you can extract will vary based upon where you're at. So for instance if I set the consumption of GeoEnergy to 1.0, and the storage capacity to 1.0, if my extraction rate for GeoEnergy is 2.0, I should be set. But if the extraction rate for GeoEnergy is .65, then you'll get a reduced output. Sound about right?

- - - Updated - - -

Buckboard has collider issues

when i attach it on the vab, i cant grab it

Thanks, I'll have that fixed next update.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Hm. Well, how much you can extract will vary based upon where you're at. So for instance if I set the consumption of GeoEnergy to 1.0, and the storage capacity to 1.0, if my extraction rate for GeoEnergy is 2.0, I should be set. But if the extraction rate for GeoEnergy is .65, then you'll get a reduced output. Sound about right?

Yeah.

If Consumption rate is 1 GE a tick producing 100 EC a tick, then so long as you have an extractor providing 1 GE a tick, you get 100 ECs per tick. (Easy math here for easy viewing)

If the Extractor is only pulling up 0.65 GE a tick, then you only get 65 EC. Or 65% power.

The thing to remember is that all additional storage capacity is going to do is create a buffer. The only reason this is a concern is because resource is treated like a physical material that can be stored in a canister like it was a fluid, or a liquid. Making the storage capacity small just ensures that shutdown of the input almost instantly shuts the whole process down. Otherwise you just consume it until it runs the 'tank' out.

If the consumption and the extraction match (IE, extractor never exceeds consumption), then you would actually never see the buffer fill up. But if your extraction does exceed consumption, like you have 2 in, 1 out, then the tank will fill to capacity. If said tank was like, a million, then you'd have a million ticks worth of stored power there just because you made it 'hueg'. Keep the capacity at the consumption value, and all the extra goes nowhere, does nothing. It's dead-simple bottlenecking.

[Angelo Kerman]

Yeah.

If Consumption rate is 1 GE a tick producing 100 EC a tick, then so long as you have an extractor providing 1 GE a tick, you get 100 ECs per tick. (Easy math here for easy viewing)

If the Extractor is only pulling up 0.65 GE a tick, then you only get 65 EC. Or 65% power.

The thing to remember is that all additional storage capacity is going to do is create a buffer. The only reason this is a concern is because resource is treated like a physical material that can be stored in a canister like it was a fluid, or a liquid. Making the storage capacity small just ensures that shutdown of the input almost instantly shuts the whole process down. Otherwise you just consume it until it runs the 'tank' out.

If the consumption and the extraction match (IE, extractor never exceeds consumption), then you would actually never see the buffer fill up. But if your extraction does exceed consumption, like you have 2 in, 1 out, then the tank will fill to capacity. If said tank was like, a million, then you'd have a million ticks worth of stored power there just because you made it 'hueg'. Keep the capacity at the consumption value, and all the extra goes nowhere, does nothing. It's dead-simple bottlenecking.

I like it. Ok, I'll make the adjustments, thanks.

[Angelo Kerman]

Latest update is now available, get it here.

0.8.6

This release fixes a bunch of issues that cropped up in Pathfinder as well as the Buffalo. It also introduces new game mechanics for the Hot Springs geothermal plant- thanks for your input, AdmiralTigerclaw!

New Parts

- Added MC-2000 Buckboard and MC-3000 Buckboard. With colliders and glowing resource decals.

- Added the Auxiliary Electronic Navigator (AuxEN). In the Old West, oxen were frequently used to pull wagons. The AuxEN doesn't pull anything, but it does the driving. The probe core is the same size as a Chassis 1u, and supports RemoteTech, AntennaRange, and kOS.

- Added an adapter that tapers from the Buffalo cab form factor to a 1.25m cylinder.

Buffalo Command cab

- Widened the headlight beams and angled them down slightly for better ground operations.

- You can now toggle the headlights separately from the cabin lights. Both cabin lights and headlights will turn on when you tap on the Lights button.

Buffalo Crew Cab

- Reworked the crew cab to include doors and ladders on its sides.

- Added a small amount of inventory space.

Doc

- Added an ImpactTransform node to the 3D mesh to accommodate drills.

Ponderosa

- Renamed the radially attached Ponderosa to the Casa.

- Increased empty mass of the Ponderosa to 0.35t to reflect its contents.

- Added an ImpactTransform node to the 3D mesh to accommodate drills.

Hacienda

- Increased empty mass of the Hacienda to 0.5t.

- Added an ImpactTransform node to the 3D mesh to accommodate drills.

Clockworks

- Maximum storage will increase to 10k liters when you convert the Hacienda to become a Clockworks. This matches the maximum volume part that you can 3D print.

Fireworks

- Really added EL productivity to the Fireworks, and got rid of ExSurveyStation. There was a mixup when preparing the last release...

Brew Works

- Brought the Autobots in and transformed Xenon into XenonGas.

Hot Springs

- Refactored the power planet to require Water and GeoEnergy as resources before it can operate. The HotSprings has a dedicated "drill" to extract GeoEnergy, called the Geothermal Tap. Right-click on the Hacienda to use the Geothermal Tap, or use the Operations Manager. You can also drill for GeoEnergy using the Gold Digger and stock Drill-O-Matic. Simply right-click on the drill and modify the resource that it drills for. Not all planets are ideal for finding GeoEnergy. Check out GeoEnergyResource.cfg to see how this initial pass is set up. Below is a quick rundown:

Geologically Active Worlds

Eve

Kerbin (duh)

Laythe

Eeloo (!) See See http://io9.com/breaking-geologic-activity-has-been-detected-on-the-su-1718055390

Possibly Geologically Active. (% chance per save)

Moho (70%)

Mun (85%) See http://www.space.com/14632-moon-dead-geologic-activity-monitored.html

Duna (70%) See http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/4/4.16.full

Ike (70%)

Val (70%)

Tylo (60%)

Not geologically active

Sun

Gilly

Minmus - wiki suggests that it's a captured comet

Jool

Bop

Pol

Dres

If a world is not listed, then it has a base 70% chance of having GeoEnergy.

Bug Fixes

- The Switchback's nodes are now in their correct places.

- The Buckboard MC-1000's decal glows again.

- Fixed file paths for several Buffalo parts so they'll show up again.

- Moved Trailer Hitch to Utility.

- Moved Chassis Decoupler to Structural.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

I'll grab this and slap Claim Jumper on it after I make a store run. Mi Gato es out of vittles.

Did you happen to include the drill decal in the pack? Or do I still have to go up and save it?

[Angelo Kerman]

I'll grab this and slap Claim Jumper on it after I make a store run. Mi Gato es out of vittles.

Did you happen to include the drill decal in the pack? Or do I still have to go up and save it?

Drill decal isn't in the pack.

[EdusacconBR]

Yay

updates!

[Angelo Kerman]

Looks like the Fireworks isn't tracking vessel productivity correctly. I'm working on a fix and will have it ready for the next update.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Alright, trying some things out.

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An image for my cooling tower template, and one for a refinery template I'm going to make. As soon as I pick what fuel and resource types it'll produce.

Edited October 12, 2015 by AdmiralTigerclaw

[Maars]

Hi Angel,

I want to report a possible conflict with the new .86 update and antenna range...... unless I've goofed up somewhere (very possible)

Once I installed .86 of Pathfinder, antenna range broke. No lines, no connections, no probe control, it just broke. I reverted to pathfinder 0.85 and everything functioned again.

Anyone else run into this? or is it my tangle of mods that is doing it?

[Angelo Kerman]

The only thing that Pathfinder does is install a ModuleManager patch for Antenna Range that applies to the Gaslight. It is called MM_AntennaRange. See if you delete that file and it clears up your issue. If so, then it sounds like there's an issue with the patch. Hope that helps.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

So far, I'm working on my modified modules and I think I'm going to try and make the system RealFuels compatible.

Right now, I'm considering a modification to the Hot Spring to put it in line with an idea I came up with for my refinery.

Since the refinery is going to be a real-fuels compatible system, I considered giving it a heat byproduct with the fuel production processes, resulting in 'steam' since it needs to be cooled. Then I realized that If I link them ALL to water, which is used by the geothermal, then some of the processes run the risk of taking the whole plant offline by accident if a process consumes water faster than it could be brought up. That would mean that the water/steam/water cycle would be broken, and either the Geothermal, or the Solar Flare would be forced to go offline the moment that happened.

So the model I've come up with to differentiate ground water from steam cycle water is thus:

The Cooling Tower, which I have affectionately theme-named the Old Faithful Condenser Tower, has two processes. One is the cooling process, which for the price of pump operation electricity, turns Steam back into usable water, but instead of water, it turns it into 'Distilled Water'.

The second process, actually turns water into Distilled Water at the cost of a big chunk of ECs.

Distilled water, as you may or may not know, is water that, through one process or another, has been almost completely stripped of any mineral and salt deposits that would otherwise exist in solution in it. It is pure H2O. The reason I choose this, is because in industry, regular water is actually corrosive to pipes and machinery. That, and the process of distillation is almost exactly the process that occurs in a power generator cycle.

Seperating water from distilled water, I can now operate the various cycles I'm adding like so.

- Water is extracted InSitu via core drill, Drill-O-Matic, or Claim Jumper and stored in a tank.

- The Old Faithful, using alternative energy supplies at the initial jumpstart, converts a small amount of this raw water into clean, distilled water. Minerals are also produced in tiny quantities as a byproduct of the process. They can either be used, or discharged from the system. (Alternately, the OF distillery process can produce steam and minerals, so the steam has to be condensed fist.)

- The distilled water can now be utilized by the Hot Spring to jump start the power cycle. The HS consumes the distilled water and Geothermal Energy as per before. Though I'm planning to reduce the Absolute Minimum you included. (Seriously? 2000 units of water? One core drill right outside KSP took 6 realtime hours to extract 10 units! I know that's not the purpose of the core drill, but HOLY-) The HS produces steam and EC as the primary product. I may put a slight loss of conversion in with the steam to simulate it getting lost in the ground pump process.

- Steam returns to the Old Faithful, where the cooling process returns it to Distilled Water. When you figure out the thermal production part of the process, that will be integrated with the tower.

- The Refinery unit will utilize advanced fuel production processes to go with real fuels. Each process will require distilled water since heat is a very common byproduct, and produce steam. You know where the steam goes to at this point.

The distilled water becomes a mostly closed-cycle. Aside from the planned losses at geothermal, Distilled water pretty much stays in a loop like it should. Regular water is used to top it off, but can remain usable for electrolosis and gas shift processes as needed without the threat of one of these fuel production processes instantly shutting the whole facility down by accident.

The trick, however, is that I'm planning for the Old Faithful to only be able to support a limited number of external processes. Like, one Old Faithful can support 3 Geothermals, OR one Solar Flare. Or One Geothermal and a collection of smaller processes.

The goal however, is that the water-steam cycle is somewhat simulated and made useful across the units. Really, it may seem more involved, but It feels like a waste to set up more templates to have them do ONE thing.

I'm even contemplating the cooling tower having a steam purge converter. (Input steam, output steam with 'dump excess' being true.)

Though, if I make that, I'll need to create a secondary geothermal function that utilizes straight water, has a much higher chance of breakdown.

Actually, I think I WILL do that.

An open AND closed cycle geothermal process. The open cycle produces more power, but is bottlenecked by how much water you can draw into it, and because of the mineral content, is prone to much higher breakage. The closed cycle process operates at a lower EC production level, but the limitation is mainly because the cooling tower is actually cooling the steam instead of just dumping it off. However, it's FAR more reliable and separates the water cycle from fuel production.

I'mma' go work on these cfgs.

[Angelo Kerman]

That should've been 500, it is a leftover from testing. Also, I am finding that ExWorkshop does not like being modified at runtime. I have a solution but it also means that the Fireworks will be retired since it is no longer needed.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Angel-125